Alright, so on to the parks. We did our first park on Friday, Dec. 30th and chose to go to AK. This was the first trip to AK for everyone in our group (my brother and I had been there for a half a day shortly after the park opened back in the late-90's but remembered virtually nothing about it). Because of the Holidays, the park opened at 8 AM and we arrived at about 8:30. First we had to stop at Will Call for my sister and I to activate our annual passes. No line, quick and painless as it turned out. I was able to get into the park a little quicker than everyone else (no bag/stroller and AP Passholder line FTW) and snapped this picture of the Christmas Tree:
It was shaping up to be a nice day, but a little cold. As you can see from the attire, it was only about 50 degrees when we arrived. I wore shorts (because I'm an idiot), but it did get to 60 degrees later in the day and I wasn't too uncomfortable. The rest of the crew got in relatively quickly and we were off. We stopped first for a picture in front of the Tree of Life (it's tough to get five kids under 8 to all look in the right direction, this will be an ongoing theme):
Then, we made our first poor decision of the trip. We knew we had a FP+ for Dinosaur at 9:55, and were headed to Dinoland, USA when we decided to make a quick stop at "It's Tough to be a Bug" since we were passing by the entrance and a new show was starting soon. Now, I don't want to be too negative. As an adult I understand what the show was going for (bugs aren't bad, they have a purpose, be nice to them and they'll be nice to you, don't kill bugs, etc.). However, the kids were all terrified afterward. Among the nice soundbites, "Can we go back to the house?", "Why were the bugs so mean?", "I didn't like those bugs", etc. I Needless to say, the message was lost on the kids and I'm guessing we aren't the only ones who have had this problem. I think a change of tone in that show cold be very helpful for the enjoyment of guests and in conveying the proper message about the importance of insects to children.
Anyway, we managed to talk the kids off the ledge and made our way to Dinoland, USA and hit the playground area. It proved to be very helpful in getting the kids back into the right frame of mind. Uncle Jared made the awesome decision to go down one of the slides and fell on his butt so the kids (and adults) all had some fun at my expense. We were there for a good 15-20 minutes before moving along to Triceratops Spin. This was a good ride for the littler ones (I had fun too
). Next, my sister, BiL, and I took my oldest nephew on Primeval Whirl (he was the only one tall enough). I thought it could have "whirled" more. After that we were on to our first FP+ and our first big test. Dinosaur had a height requirement of 40". This was a pretty big deal, as we knew the two youngest wouldn't be able to ride, but since so many rides have a 40" height requirement it was pretty vital that the two 5-year-olds, who are both in the bottom 5% for height at their age (my grandma is <5ft and my dad is 5'3", I'm not sure how I'm 5'10"), be able to ride. My niece was about 41" (yes!) but my nephew had to take a deep breath to touch the board (yes!). He continued to get measured on basically every ride but was never turned away
. Here is our ride pic:
My nieces and nephews are pretty delicate souls when it comes to story and "bad guys" as you can see in the pic (but I still agree with their assessment of "It's Tough to be a Bug").
Next we headed back for our next FP+, our first ever Expedition Everest! Now, I have my first confession and I have a little guilt about this. I made all of our FP+ as a group because we were doing everything together and didn't want to separate. For a ride like EE, this left us with three kids too small (the youngest didn't have FP+) and my mom who doesn't like motion rides with unused FP+. Well, we decided that this seemed wasteful, so my brother, nephew, and I all went twice by borrowing Magicbands. I don't know if I should feel worse about this than I do, but I don't feel like we really affected the flow of traffic on the ride and we were only using existing FP+, so we felt OK about it. Anyway, here are our pics:
I guess my BiL was more concerned with my nephew than I was. Those are the hands and hair of my sister in the second photo. I think we forgot, or missed, touching our MB's on her photo with my brother.
After EE, we had a Lunch ADR at Tusker House for 12:45. We had a little time to burn and took a train ride and looked around some of the shops. We took a couple of the nature walks as well throughout the day. Tusker House went really well. When I initially made our ADR I was unaware whether my Brother's family would be able to come and only made it for 6. When they decided to join us, I could only get another for in the same time period. Fortunately, the CM's in charge of reservations were incredibly helpful. They connected the dots and worked on getting all 11 of us together before I even asked. We were seated on time (which felt unlikely considering how crowded the park was) and the meal was fantastic. I know that you pay for the convenience of a sit down meal at the parks, but I feel like it has been worth it for me every time we've done it. The food was fantastic. The green curry shrimp getting special recognition. I am a big fan of Mediterranean and North African Cuisine so everything was great for me, but the kids and all of our adults loved it as well. Plus:
It really was a great experience and my favorite character dining that we've done.
After lunch, we were off to our final FP+ of the day at Kilimanjaro Safari. I honestly didn't know what to expect, it's the only ride I remembered from my previous trip and very few animals were out when I went on it (the disappointment is what I remembered). I was very surprised when we saw basically every animal on the board including getting close enough to a few White Rhinos to touch them. The kids LOVED the Safari and, really, that's half the battle. It was also one of the few rides my youngest nephew could go on and he had a smile the whole time.
After that the realities of a crowded park with relatively few attractions hit us like a train. We attempted to add another FP+ with our allotment filled, but nothing in the entire park remained for the rest of the day. We tried getting in line for the Lion King and Nemo shows, but we were told at 3:00 that we were lining up for the 4:30 showing of Lion King and the kids decided they'd rather go home and get in some pool time rather than trying to wait for a show. I would have loved for the park to have been less crowded and seen what we could have accomplished under different circumstances, but it was an awesome day. As was posted earlier, we ended the day with a picture by the Christmas Tree. Jiminy Cricket is my dad's favorite character and that is the significance of getting him in the photo (He couldn't take the full time period off and joined us Wednesday of Marathon Weekend).
More to come...